Posts Tagged "Week 1"

Anyone who knows me can tell you that I love celebrity gossip, really just gossip in general. I have my host of celebrity websites so I can keep up with all the news and I seriously enjoy scoping out the who’s wearing what and who’s dating who stories that pop up everyday. I knew that I would have a hard time finding something that I loved but could also write about every week for a whole semester. I mean how genius is it to blog on celeb news, something new happens almost every day. In addition to keeping the same topic I’ve decided that I will do more than just scratch the surface, the opinions that I present will be in depth and have evidence such as articles, videos, etc. This way I can do a better job of sparking a thoughtful debate amongst my audience.

My speech focuses on the program called the Urban Service Experience (USE) which is provided through Penn State and Shaver’s Creek. artifact includes the website for the program, which also has a picture slideshow.

Purpose:

– To educate my audience of how the USE program of Penn State benefits civic life and to express the program’s mission towards unity and civic responsibility

Audience:

In order to capture my audience I will use my own experiences from USE to provide trust in what I’m presenting. My presentation will be lively so hopefully people will not grow bored

Medium:

I will be wearing my USE T-shirt

Ethos:

My credibility in my speech comes from not only my experiences in the program but also those of my fellow students who can all attest to its benefits

Pathos:

I will draw on my experiences with community service and talk about how I personally connected with cancer patients, the elderly, etc through my civic work

Logos:

My claims will be that USE encourages civic responsibility and I will prove this through my week long analysis in the program

Hey guys! So to start off my passion blog I just wanna give a little overview of what I’m going to do week after week. So starting today, I will give a recap of a celebrity story currently circulating in the news. I will then give my opinion on the celebrities involved as well as a thought provoking and introspective spin on the topic.

So let’s begin…

By now everyone has come across the story of the affair between Kristen Stewart and her married director Rupert Sanders. A little background info: Rupert Sanders was the director of the film Snow White and the Huntsman, his wife Liberty is also an actress and the former couple also have two children together. Ironically, Rupert’s wife Liberty was the one to convince her husband to give Kristen the role in the movie; funny how that turned out. Now, I’m not going to use this post as an opportunity to bash any of the parties involved or preach about the evils of adultery. There are just a few questions I feel should be asked of the general public regarding this scandal.
One thing I’ve noticed is the incessant hate directed at Kristen Stewart for her involvement in the affair. Outside of the die-hard Twilight fans the overwhelming consensus regarding Kristen Stewart is that she is an evil, home wrecker. There are even currently t-shirts on sale with the words “Trampire” branded on them. Where is the vitriol directed towards Rupert? Why is he allowed to walk freely and go to events without hordes of people yelling insults?

I feel that the public reactions to this scandal have revealed an underlying issue of sexism surrounding cheating and the roles of men and women. Rupert as a mildly successful Hollywood director and a man he emerges relatively unscathed from this situation. For many months to come Kristen Stewart will be known as the “woman who cheated”. Not only do her actions affect her personal life but her professional one as well.

What are your thoughts on this issue? How do you feel cheating is viewed in our society in regards to men vs. women?

The film Do The Right Thing explores various themes of racial tension, civic duty, and conflicting ideologies among racial groups. The film presents a very honest look at the lives, actions and inner thoughts of the various characters and their struggles and opinions. Each character seems to act according to what, in their minds, is the “right thing”. For example, Buggin’ Out believed that his civic duty was to convince Sal to put black people on the wall of fame, Radio Raheem’s was to spread his music’s message no matter the occasion. When the fights broke out in front of Sal’s the cops fought to contain the crowd in anyway possible, including violence, later resulting in the death of Radio Raheem. There is nothing wrong with being a part of one’s community or having a civic life. However, the characters in the film all have ideologies that conflict to the point of chaos, violence, and tragedy.

Throughout the film there are various instances of racism and racial contempt. A prime example of this is Sal’s son Pino. Pino hates the primarily black neighborhood in which he works and often refers to black people as apes or ”niggers”, a part of the movie I felt did not deserve laughter. His contempt for his fellow black citizens was not only disturbing but unfounded.

The panel discussion that followed not only was controversial but shocking as well. What I saw from some of the speakers upset me greatly as a black person. I felt that pointless stereotypes were being perpetuated and agreed with by a large amount of the people present. I had hoped that the movie and the subsequent discussion would clear away peoples’ preexisting thoughts concerning the subjects presented in the film, but that didn’t seem to be the case.